Gray and Ultear Vignettes
by myshippingdock
Summary: It was incurable. He just got butterflies no matter what she did. The good kind and the bad kind and the everysortofthing in between kind. He got so many butterflies in his tummy from her, Gray thought he was going to explode and be sick someday. GrayTear & Fluff. angst. Fluff. angst. & Fluff. angst. Shorter drabbles. AU or canon compliant.
1. Chapter 1

March 25th. Gray and Ultear.

Prompt: butterflies, special cooties, love-sick. {tag: graytear fluff/angst}

Gray had it bad.

A prettypretty girl with a smart mouth and pretty lilac hair, and pretty purple butterfly clips- she gave him the kind of butterfly cooties no boy his age was ready for.

He was _twelve_ and he didn't exactly have girl cooties anymore, but, he called this _feeling_ he only got around _her_ – 'the special cooties' _._

Cause he felt like he really shouldn't be feeling like this. Not about _her_.

But he could tell these weren't just any _'butterfly cooties'_ though. They were the _special kind_.

The kind of special cooties _Dad said only Mom gave him when he first met her_.

He didn't know how he _knew_. _He just did._

 _But there was a problem_.

The girl that made his heart _trip and beat and fumble_ fast was _Ultear Malkovich_.

And… he sort of _knew_ her. She was a whole grade younger than him.

 _And_ she was Ul Malkovich's beloved daughter.

Who just happened to be his seventh grade Art teach.

Who just happened to have one of her endless legs, [that pretty much every boy in his class liked to stare at, _except him_ , but damn, _Ultear was sure going to grow up real lethal pretty._ Not that she wasn't already to him.He was hopelessly loyal and her besotted slave anyway, even if she didn't know it. He had determined a while back that he simply didn't have eyes for any other girl no matter how cute.] _and_ her right arm in a thick white cast.

Because of him.

 _Because he had accidentally rammed into her last week despite warnings and spear-headed her down the stairs. She had shielded him and taken the fall for him, while he got away with a few scratches and a sore back._

If that wasn't enough. Not only had he caused Ultear's mother's injury, he had also ruined Ultear's chances of competing in the annual ice sculpting contest held in school the same evening.

 _She had been so looking forward to it too, gleefully flipping snow about and impatiently working hard on her sculptor for her mother ages on end. She had wanted to make her proud. But once her mother went toppling down the stairs and broke a few bones, she couldn't think of anything else but the hurt and fear._

She refused to leave her mother's side despite Miss Malkovich urging her too. _He couldn't blame her._

Her mother was all she had. She didn't know anything about her father or any other family she may have had. Only Miss Malkovich. Strong, stern, beautiful and kind Miss Malkovich, who looked like she was in a terrible lot of pain.

 _He hadn't wanted to leave their side too. It was all his fault.._

He had refused to go too, but Ultear's _pretty dark eyes_ grew darker and turned on him. They filled with _sadsadgut-wrenchingtears_ and knocked the breath out of him. Eyes flashing hate, her small face scrunched up in anger and she clenched her fists, blurting out,

" _Go away. This is all your fault Gray!"_

And he winced, his eyes suddenly blurring and filling with tears too.

He knew he was twelve and he was a boy and he shouldn't cry. But he couldn't help it.

 _She was right. It was his fault._ He hadn't been paying attention and she told him to be careful, and stop horsing around but he hadn't _listened_. But no matter what, h _e hadn't meant to hurt her_. But he couldn't find anything to say to Ultear. Her tears made him feel like the worst little shit in the world.

 _Even though a tiny part of him whispered she wasn't being very fair._ He cared about her mother too! She was his favorite teach, the only teach he gave his full attention to in class and that said a lot.

 _And he liked Ultear._ He liked her so much, and yet, he had hurt her in the worst way possible now.

He had gone and done the one thing she could probably never forgive. He had hurt her mother. The person in this world most important to her. Even if he hadn't meant to.

To make matters worse, Miss Malkovich had shushed Ultear through her pain and smiled gently at him, extracting a promise from him _that he would compete and win the ice sculpting competition for Ultear's sake. Especially because her daughter couldn't be there now to do it herself._ Ultear didn't look at him as he clenched his fists and quietly gave her mother his word before he stiffly forced himself to walk away as the ambulance took them away.

 _He won. He won the competition for them._ He silently gave his trophy to Miss Malkovich when she was well enough to return to school, too scared to approach Ultear directly. She hadn't so much as said a word to him or even looked at him since then.

He was bummed. He didn't know how to make it up to her. And he sure as hell hadn't been able to stop crushing on her. Even though he told himself he must.

Ultear had been giving him weird cootie alerts since they were three, tumbling each other by chance, in kindergarten and daycares their families happened to coincidentally enroll them in… he never directly talked to her since then. She was younger and wasn't in any of his classes, but when he passed by her in the corridors again in middle school, he just knew.

 _She was the one._

Heck, he could sooner get over losing to Natsu and Lyon than get over _her_.

His cheeks burned when she merely glanced his way. And his heart hurt like hell when she cried. He felt like he would cry with her when she cried and laugh with her if she laughed and make her every kind of the bright ice shavings she craved and imagined. He would empty the last bit of his allowance on every stupid kind of chocolate he knew was her favorite if he knew it would turn her frowns upside down and bring back the happy light in her stormy violet-gray hues. He sneaked glances at her during phys-ed, and let her steal the ball from him when she shot hoops with the guys because she was just that cute. He suspected she was actually just that good, probably even better than him, but he was too distracted to be able to tell for sure.

He couldn't stop his heart from beating 7 times fast and turning embarrassingly red at random when she teased him or simply tossed him her heart-stopping smiles without a care.

 _Everything she did gave him butterflies._

When she poked him he got butterflies. When she asked to borrow his stuff he got butterflies. When she lent him things he got butterflies. When she smiled at him she got butterflies. When she tripped over him, hurt her knee and started bawling, he got butterflies. When she accidentally touched his hand he got butterflies. When she furrowed her brows in concern he got butterflies. When she was mad at him he got butterflies. When her eyes lit up with a mad, teasing gleam he got butterflies. When she was frowning at the time he got butterflies. When she breezed through her homework he got butterflies. Even when she passed him a note meant for Gerard from Erza beside her, he got butterflies.

 _It was incurable._ He just got butterflies no matter what she did. The good kind and the bad kind and the _everysortofthing_ in between kind. He got so many butterflies in his tummy from her, Gray thought he was going to explode and be sick someday.

He _was_ probably sick already. And _not_ the regular kind of sick. Just goddamn _Love sick_. _God, he was such a sorry sap of a kid_.

Not indifferent or cool at all like he pretended to be on the outside. At least as far as Ultear Malkovich was concerned. She undid all his cozy and cranky buttons.

And now, he didn't know how to make it up to her. He almost wished the butterfly cooties with her name on them had stayed in their cocoons and never wreaked havoc inside him.


	2. Chapter 2

March 30th. Gray and Ultear.

Prompt: Hades and Persephone

She raced through green meadows, long lilac tresses flying alluringly around her with the whimsical wind. Laughing ash-mauve eyes that flashed crimson in her rage, smiling into his from a distance.

Gentling the sad frowns on his unguarded, besotted face. _He was only like this around her._

He was Gray, the eternal commander of dead souls. She was Ultear, the timeless rule of life.

 _And all things alive._ _And his life's breath. His sin and his redemption. His healing and his pain._

The damp tears on his gray cheeks. And the bright rays burning his dark tears.

His ceaseless, bittersweet, effervescent want.

 _His doom and His hope. Hating him. Then loving him. And bringing him to his knees._

Spring bloomed and blossomed in the wake of her trembling goddess feet and sweet broken smiles.

 _But when she hid herself away, she killed everything she was meant to birth._

 _Hatred and rage consuming her sweet innocence and corrupting her with pain._

He was the commander of the lifeless, guide to Elysium and to Hades Hell _._

 _Lost in his solitude and ache, Every-thing he touched and loved, they froze and perished._

 _The unkind grip of death fisting around his bruised heart and giving shape to his demons._

 _She_ was the exception. She lived through his curse. To deliver him like he delivered her.

Breaking through their vicious cycle of pain.

 _She lived to love him, and share in his sin. And He lived to love her, and share in hers._

She was the devil to his angel and the angel to his devil.

Fated to part and reunite. Imprisoned by the cruel whimsies of Time.

 _The God of death. And the Goddess of life._

 _The fateful roses and thorns of life and death, maliciously twining around the cruel hourglass of their fatal prison._

Until they fiercely and humbly relent.

 _To the grace of peace and safety of the mortal world_ , he must tear himself away from her and relinquish her into the precious care of her beloved mother; His only solace in knowing she loved her as well as he himself.

Left to wait and long for her. Year after year in her absence, the alluring scent of her presence and life lingering all around him in his deathly abode, a quiet, yearning desperation, and pain steeling his resolve.

Awaiting her return. Her Soul. Body and Mind. In the embrace of his dying reach, her life's breath to intertwine again with his.

 _Reuniting them in life and death in a bittersweet lover's clasp that must prepare to let go when the moment he must part with her nears their clinging, aching grasp._


	3. Chapter 3

April 5th. Gray and Ultear.

Prompt: sealing darknesses and sasusaku forest of death hug.

He stiffened and trembled as she embraced him, her arms reaching around him over the dark, black mark stretching over the scar he carved into his abdomen for her with _bloodred_ ice that was _hisfrozen redblood_. Her ragged, strong whisper of _"Please! Stop this!"_ pierced through his crimson soul and he stilled, stumbling in her strong, tight grip, fighting with himself to focus on the ache and fierceness of her voice reaching for him through his haze and bloodlust.

 _For her_ , the dark horror gripping him in his control wanted to yell. He wanted feel the blood splash on his pants and the crack of bones in his fingers because the worthless piece of shit had broken her and bruised and bloodied her and he saw red and nothing but red, but she yelled at him, clearing the red for him and making him see her haunting crimson-muave iris and only hers, her nails digging into the skin of his stomach, calming him despite himself.

" _The man who sealed away my darkness wouldn't forget himself! He wouldn't give into this sort of darkness again! Not after knowing the horrors it can bring, Isn't that right Gray?!"_

He looked over his shoulder into her swirling, aching _ashdark_ eyes that were filling with painful tears and begging him to come back to his senses and his heart squeezed and he hurthurthurt and he couldn't stop and he struggled against his dark haze until _she_ became his undoing

His _graygrayeyes_ widened and he began breathing hard, rebelling against the rebellious mark on his darkening steel of his right iris and brow, forcing it to recede.

 _She was right._ _This isn't what he wanted._ _He didn't want to become a monster, no matter what the cause_. _He wouldn't be much different from Deliora then! He struggled harder, concentrating on her words and the feel of her strong arms pulling him back from the edge of his dark precipice._

He panted and inhaled, feeling his darkness being devoured by the broken jagged pieces of her uncompromising heart, her _sadsad_ broken heart that loved him through the pain and hurt they both understood so well… _and his marks were receding._

She was bringing him back.

Like the time he fought with Doriarte and remembered the horrors of Deliora, and the time he fought with his Father and decided he must die. She was just always there for him, helping from the shadows and asking nothing in return.

Every time he should lose himself she would be _there to bring him back_. He could feel it with every beat of his dark heart that she would, even if she had to tear herself apart for him. Like he had brought her back that one time even if he had to bleed or crash down a mountain with her for it. _And she remembered he had and it meant something to her_.

Warmth coursed through him with an intensity he didn't understand.

This became the third time didn't it? _She_ had become the angel to his devil now and he felt the whiteness of the ribbons in her long, dark hair contrasting painfully against the black darkness of his skin, the engulfing marks fading away into himself.

 _She had sealed away his darkness like he had sealed away hers._

Were their destinies so closely intertwined, they followed behind each other, in their sin and suffering and healing too? He didn't know. He found he didn't care if it meant he was going to find her beside him through it all, and at the end of it no matter what.

But he made a silent vow to himself then. He would never ever let himself get so broken that she would have to break herself to un-break him again.

 _If he had her beside him_ , safe and sound and alive and warm and as unbroken as he could keep her, _then nothing else mattered as much_.

The intensity of his emotions scared him but he was so tired and aching and full of need. Overwhelmed, consumed by something, and simply needing her, he whispered her name hoarsely, _"Ultear!"_ _and turned around, and buried his face in her chest, hugging her to him, his tears shaking her to her core_.

And she cried with him, _for him_ , her arms soft, twining around his neck, engulfing him, and whispered gently in broken litany's, _"Shhh. It's Okay Gray. It's all over now. I'm with you. Always. I promise. No matter what. I'm not going anywhere. I love you. I won't let anything tear us apart. We can forgive and break and heal and love together. You have me. And I have you. Always."_


End file.
